Currently on view is Sconce Show, featuring plug-in lighting by Amanda Swain, Rico Duenas, soft-geometry, Sergio Mondragón, and John Gnorski for Studio Ahead. The focus on plug-in rather than hardwired fixtures introduces what Anand calls “a democratic kind of flexibility,” objects that can travel with you, shift with your life, and be installed without permission or renovation. In architecture, the hardwired gesture is a declaration. A plug-in is an invitation.

The five artists range from soft-geometry’s hand-blown glass and hemp-lime braids to Rico Duenas working with found corrugated fiberglass from his years as a union electrician in San Francisco. Anand emphasizes that competition has never been the lens through which he approaches this work. Storefront exists as a place for generosity, where he can lift up peers, from emerging to established practitioners, in a world that rarely makes space for that.

The Bay Area design community isn’t always recognized for its strength, but we’re always excited for those championing it. It’s a pocket we love, and efforts like these remind us that some of the most passionate, intelligent people in design are here building something real. Read the full conversation with Anand below:

You launched Storefront Anand Sheth in 2024 as a platform separate from your architecture practice. What was the gap you were trying to fill, and now that you’ve been running it for over a year, how has your understanding of what it can be evolved from those initial intentions?

Studio Anand Sheth is where I practice architecture and interiors for clients — projects that are rigorous, collaborative, and tied to long timelines and real constraints. Within each of my projects there is a methodical curatorial component meant for those clients and their audiences. Storefront Anand Sheth emerged because I needed a public-facing platform where I could explore ideas with more immediacy. As I’ve sunk deeper into the Bay Area and West Coast art world, a context I’ve been immersed in for nearly two decades, I felt an urge to build a conceptual place for curatorial experiments that could communicate the possibilities within my architectural thinking while speaking to different audiences.

In my case, creating Storefront Anand Sheth as a parallel platform was about expanding the types of work I could develop — not because the identity needed separation, but because the modes of practice are different. Architecture and interiors require long-term commitments, technical coordination, and accountability to clients, budgets, and regulatory systems. My curation operates on a different tempo. It lets me test ideas in public, build community-facing narratives, and collaborate with artists and makers in ways that aren’t tied to a construction timeline.

Both platforms share the same values, the same rigor, and the same cultural lens — but Storefront Anand Sheth gives me room to explore forms of design that aren’t limited to spatial work. That includes object and furniture dialogues and jewelry — pieces that extend my interest in design for the human body across multiple scales. It’s also where I can build exhibitions that speak directly to specific audiences in the Bay Area art world, reflecting the context I’ve been shaped by since studying architecture at CCA.

More than a year in, Storefront Anand Sheth has clarified itself as the part of my practice where I can invite people in first — and then elevate them. It draws on the same instinct I bring to client work: demystifying processes, educating through transparency, and making space for voices that enrich the built environment. It has become a living notebook where architectural, cultural, and collaborative ideas can be tested in public, without the constraints of client deliverables.

The current residency pairs your curatorial vision with York Street Collective, which has its own history of transforming overlooked spaces into gathering places. How did you and Anand Upender find each other, and what does the dynamic between an architect-curator and a hospitality-focused collective look like in practice?

We actually met because we share the same first name — I found his first pandemic pop-up on Instagram, York Street Café, a coffee shop he ran out of his garage. I lived just a few blocks away, so we DMed, met up, and realized immediately that we were approaching hospitality through a similar lens: as an intersection of design, care, and cultural expression. I was struck by his clarity and insight — he naturally ties together branding, food research, hosting, and community-building with an ease that feels both intuitive and deeply studied.

Our collaboration has grown organically. I supported him with design guidance during his first brick-and-mortar space through Vacant to Vibrant, and he has catered several of my openings with menus that extend the narrative of each show. Those shared experiments eventually led to this residency.

In practice, our roles dovetail. Anand’s contributions center on bringing people together, developing menus, and shaping the hospitality engine behind an experience. My work focuses on spatial planning, operational flow, and understanding human behavior through the architecture. The gallery becomes the intersection point where those instincts meet — where objects, food, people, and space are all held in the same frame.

Sconce Show focuses specifically on plug-in lighting rather than hardwired fixtures. What drew you to this constraint, and how does it connect to your broader interest in hospitality and accessibility?

Plug-in lighting introduces a democratic kind of flexibility — objects that can travel with you, shift with your life, and be installed without permission or renovation. In architecture, the hardwired gesture is a declaration; a plug-in is an invitation. Choosing this constraint allowed the show to speak to impermanence, experimentation, and the realities of contemporary living, especially in dense cities where renting, adapting, and layering spaces is the norm.

From a hospitality perspective, light is often the first thing that tells you whether you’re welcome. Plug-in fixtures feel intimate because they’re human-scaled — designed to be touched, moved, and lived with. They’re an accessible entry point into collecting functional sculpture, which aligns with my desire to bring more people into the world of designed objects without requiring them to already know the language of a gallery or design showroom.

The five artists in the show range from soft-geometry’s hand-blown glass and hemp-lime braids to Rico Duenas working with found corrugated fiberglass. How did you discover each of these studios, and what conversations or studio visits shaped how you decided to present their work together?

Three of the artists — soft-geometry, Amanda Swain, and Sergio Mondragón — were part of my previous exhibitions VESSEL (2024) and Closer Than They Appear (2025). The studio visits and conversations that began through those shows created a shared foundation that naturally evolved into this exhibition. Their practices all explore material as a carrier of memory and identity, which aligned with the narrative I wanted to build for Sconce Show.

Rico Duenas was a newer discovery. I first saw his work in a group show among friends a couple years ago, and more recently had the chance to visit his studio. He’s a union electrician, and his space is filled with construction-site artifacts and found materials from a lifetime spent in San Francisco. Seeing how he transforms corrugated fiberglass and discarded objects into illuminated stories felt like an essential voice for this show.

Studio Ahead has become an anchor in the Bay Area design community, especially in the way they communicate a Northern California sensibility to the world. Studio Ahead’s collaboration with John Gnoroski brought a textured, sculptural perspective that fit perfectly into the exhibition’s material ecosystem.

Across everyone’s work, I’m drawn to designers who stretch how material can hold feeling. Curating them together was about amplifying each practice and emphasizing the Bay Area holistically — including some designers who the public might expect to be my ‘competitors.’ But competition has never been the lens through which I approach this work. Storefront Anand Sheth exists as a place for generosity, where I can lift up my peers, from emerging to established practitioners, in a world that rarely makes space for that. That ethos is also shaping my upcoming collaboration with Nomadory — a rug collection we’ve been developing together that carries the same belief in shared authorship and material narratives. I want audiences to understand that collaboration and mutual elevation are the true engines behind my practice — whether in architecture, curation, or community.